Lifetime through hourglass
by ivygrah
Summary: There was so much more to the tale of three Peverell brothers than anyone thought. How the three hallows were created and how did Harry Potter survive the killing curse for real? Apparently it had something to do with Unspeakables and..sand?


**Lifetime through hourglass**

**Summary:** Oneshot. There was much more to Beedle the Bard's tale of three Peverell brothers than anyone thought. Peverells were connected to Unspeakables along with the power to control life and death.

**Warning:** Telling instead of showing. Typos and faulty sentence structure.

All in all, just something I have thought up after seeing a clip about Discworld.

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><p>In the underground of the city of London, under the Ministry of Magic, there was a department of Mysteries, one that ministry's paper pushers and politicians thought they controled. The reality was that the place was created long before the Ministry's building was even built.<p>

The department had halls. To rare visitors or even low level Unspeakables, i.e. those who worked there, researchers (as most people thought they were) those halls were of Love, Time, Prophesies, Death and Knowledge.

And while they were the focus of research made by Unspeakables, some (those who were most experienced and extremely knowledgeable) worked with connected projects.

There was a place in the Level Nine of Ministry of Magic, in the Unspeakable HQ, were there were hundreds of thousands of shelves, stretching out into abyss. On those shelves there were billions upon billions of hourglasses.

No, they weren't Time-turners, no matter what Ministry said, those 'regulated' Time-turners that were sometimes given out to some people weren't in any way 'spectacular'. They could take maximum three people backwards in time for thirteen hours mostly and any attempt to change the past unsubtly (like confronting your own younger self) made the one who tried being written out of history with no traces. Poof... and gone, in other words.

No. These hourglasses were a project that existed long before the Ministry of Magic itself. Their equivalent (though not as accurate) existed before and the disadvantage was that people had no way of making use of it.

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><p>Ignotus Peverell was the third and least doted of Peverell brothers. Ignotus was used to being overshadowed by his more exiting, smart, attractive or inventive older brothers, as he himself was a fairly non-descriptive, average wizard, not to mention that he never even graduated from Hogwarts (as he had gotten himself expelled).<p>

Peverell lived during thirteenth century, only two hundred years after Hogwarts foundation. Ignotus, as the third brother, who had no amazing qualities, was deemed to be more like a burden than anyone useful for the family. While Antioch by the right of the firstborn was the one to inherit everything - the gold, the manor and the lands, Cadmus, the middle brother, was so innovative that some people called him 'Ravenclaw reborn'. Hogwarts founders, who lived only two hundred years before three Peverells, were already legends not only because of Hogwarts but also because of their magical discoveries. Being compared to them was a highest possible compliment so Cadmus had quickly made himself known as independent spellcrafter and magtificer (artificer of magical objects like portkeys, magical mirrors, etc.).

Even a sister would have been more useful for the Peverell family than Ignotus, the foolish youngest brother as the family would have used a daughter to marry into an influential family.

Simply said, Ignotus was the disappointment of the family and was unlikely to ever change that.

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><p>But then, one night, during a severe storm in the middle of summer just few days after his birthday, seventeen-year-old Ignotus had ran away from the Peverell family manor in Godric's hallow. Ignotus had felt uneasy for quite some time. As he was already of age the pressure for him to become <em>somebody<em> of importance had weighted more strongly on his shoulders.

Ignotus was tired of feeling like a disgrace and he finally grew courage to leave his family because of the conversation he overheard. Apparently his parents were planning to sent Ignotus to the continent, to their Bavarian relative because they were so ashamed of him and wanted him furtherst from them possible.

And so as he ran, Ignotus made a promise to himself that he will become better wizard than anyone else and prove everyone he was not a disgrace.

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><p>Ambition is a powerful tool. It can lead to both a great success and a great downfall. Salazar Slytherin, one of the most ambitious wizads in history of Magical Britain, had found that out personally.<p>

And Ignotus Peverell had great ambition.

After running away, the third brother lived among muggles for some time. To avoid getting discovered by his family, Ignotus had travelled to Ireland and through great deal of luck (and manipulation - he was a Peverell and Peverells were great businessmen and bargainers) managed to mingle himself among Celts the wizards, those who practised raw magic, not Celts the muggles though he had seen them, too.

During his time in Ireland, Ignotus had seen much and experienced much more.

As someone who dropped out of Hogwarts for indecent behavior (Ignotus was far less proper than any other of students) and someone who never was that good with magic anyways, the tricks youngest Peverell learned from Celts were vital to the young runaway and later helped him.

Celts were honest, simple people, very connected to nature and quite generous and accepting. However, as Ignotus was quite selfish, he used the new magic he learned from Celts to make profit and because of that they banned him from their lands and placed a curse on Ignotus.

It was a fairly simple curse, one that flourished from the cursed-ones fear and hate.

That particular curse made sure that every achievement Ignotus made to escape his family's name and prove himself as important had to be shared with his family since his biggest fear was to continue to be overshadowed.

Of course, at the time when Ignotus had ran from Ireland he had no idea he was cursed. Ignotus hoped those understanding Irish folks would just forgive him but it was a fool's hope.

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><p>Eventually, as he traveled, using his newly learned Celtic magic (along with runic magic he learned), Ignotus found himself in the great town of saxons, french and others of various background. London, or Lundenwick as it was still called by some wizards of the early thirteenth century (those who refused to recognise muggles and the changes made by them and had already started alienation process).<p>

There, in a place where many thugs flourished, along with traders and where many people, both muggle and wizard coexisted (somewhat, though there were wizard-exclusive places like early Diagon alley - mostly shops that were built around the most ancient of buildings - Ollivander's wands).

Anyways, Ignotus found himself in the town of London, slowly adapting to the life of constant movement and frequent thieveries.

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><p>The tale of Deathly hallows, written by Beedle the Bard three centuries later, talked about three brothers conquering death and gaining objects with properties that were thought to be impossible to give to any object because of limitations of magic itself.<p>

However, Bard's story was simply just that - a story. There was no death, nor there was any brotherly bonding over creation of an overpowered wand, ghost-summoning ring or invisibility cloak that never worn out like some believers (like Albus Dumbledore) thought.

No, even though Ignotus was living in London and no longer feared his family or bothered to hide from them (though he didn't advertise his family name), there was no bonding between him and his brothers.

Ignotus flourished among the low-lives. When someone needed to get the job done there he was. And he was quite successful - he never starved and had enough of entertainment. However, what changed everything, what went down in history and hundreds of years later was the reason that ensured Harry Potter's survival, the creation of deathly hallows was purely a coincidence.

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><p>Ignotus liked mysteries, he liked investigating them. He had been living in London for over a year when he heard about the place where people once ventured tended to disappear into thin air. He was curious and decided to find out what was so special about it. That was how he found himself in an underground cave, filled with mysterious symbols and <em>sand<em>, lots and lots of sand, neatly arranged in piles.

That sand had magical properties and was used by imps that came out at night to rearrange the piles.

Ignotus captured one of the imps and demanded answers. The rusult of his little trip was probably one of the most profitable deals that were ever made between humans and magical creatures.

Imps, a branch of fairies, were thought to be magical creatures of no intelligence and importance, however what Ignotus had found out shocked him. Apparently (according to Impish tales) Imp's were coerced by _Them_ (whoever _They_ were) to give up their wings and do a job that no other creature was willing.

Those piles of sand were actually tied to their human counterparts. Every time an imp had added more sand or took it from the pile, life expectancy of that human changed.

In other words, Imps (most of them anyway) were responsible for wizards' age.

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><p>Shocked as he was, Ignotus was not about to pass up the opportunity. He volunteered to help Imps to make their cave more organized. In exchange imps agreed for him to take some leftover sand for himself.<p>

That was how hallows were born - Ignotus had in his hurry out of the cave to inspect the sand (along with his uneasiness of being near the creatures who literary decided who lived and who died randomly) poured the sand into his sack were he had put his extra wand (that of elder wood and with a thestral hair core), his only family heirloom (a ring with black stone that belonged to the only necromancer his family ever had) and tebo's skin (tebo being a creature, able to make itself invisible when faced with danger).

And so, unknowing for Ignotus, the _sand_ made these objects drown in a pool of magic, more raw, wild than anything those Celts had showed him. It enchanted their abilities to the extreme but Ignotus had found that out only later.

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><p>Ignotus did help to organize the cave, created neat shelves where numerous hourglasses had been filled with <em>aevum<em> sand. That was how Ignotus had named it, using Latin (and was fortunate enough to choose the correct name as he was barely adequate in that language). It roughly translated to a lifetime, age or eternity.

Ignotus, as he was helping imps, had noticed that his day to day jobs were more successful and one day (when he was running from a herd of muggles carrying pitchforks and torches) his own tebo's cloak - the one he won in a drinking game- turned him invisible. There was also a time when he simply touched his wand and burned the whole haycock down simply because he was thinking it was cold. There was also a tale how he discovered the stone's properties but it was so embarrising he obliviated himself (not that it had that name in his time).

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><p>Ignotus, thinking that this was what would finally make him a famous wizard and show to others that he was not a useless third brother, began to advertise his magical provess, getting himself into unnecessary duels, had finally faced the curse that Celts placed on him.<p>

Whenever he, Ignotus, won a duel, his brother Antioch was praised for such provess, whenever Ignotus showed off what the Resurrection (or _immortui_ as Ignotus labeled it) stone could do, more and more customers came to Cadmus, hoping he will created something as equally brilliant just for them.

And Ignotus himself, instead of becoming famous like he wanted, was invisible, as if he was wearing his tebo's cloak all the time.

Resigned to his fate, Ignotus came to terms with the situation and decided to simply give the two hallows to his brothers, those he hadn't seen in years. They mocked him but accepted the 'gifts' that made them famous.

However, unknown to them, Ignotus had placed a curse of Misfortune he learned from celts on the ring and on the wand and it took only few years before it got to them.

Eventually Ignotus, as he was the only remaining Peverell, had settled down and passed on his name along with his tebo's cloak to his son.

He never visited the Imps again but he did told his story once to his son, as a fairy tale, that passed on and eventually came down in history as part of wizarding folk-lore (no imps were featured because even meeting Death was deemed more realistic by wizards than Imps with the power to hand out or take wizards lives).

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><p>There was a strange place in level nine of Ministry of Magic, in Unpeakable headquarters. It was a place, filled with shelves upon which there were billions upon billions of hourglasses filled with <em>lifetime sand<em>. Each of the hourglasses had a name tag written on it. When someone died, the sand from top half of the hourglass had finished dripping to the bottom one and whenever they died, a new name was written and a new wizard or witch was born.

Few of Unspeakables had the privilege of knowing about that room and even less were allowed to come in there.

Those who knew about it, heard stories how Imps had operated this place before Ministry of Magic was created (and how they were later driven out and made to forget about the whole affair. After all, there was no way that wizards would have allowed for simple _insects_ to be the ones to decide their destiny.

For example, when an authorised Unspeakable was wandering through that place, he or she would lift one of the hourglasses and turn it upside-down simply out of curiosity and some fortunate fellow would gain half a life time or some miserable bloke would lose some of his time.

And sometimes an Unspeakable would turn the hourglass upside-down intentionally, when everything else failed and prolong one's lifespan.

This was exactly what was done in the end of Twentieth century. There was an important battle going on Hogwarts ground when one Unspeakable, wearing plain robes and dirty sneakers for feetwear, turned a hourglass labeled 'Harry Potter' upside down and given the sod a much, much longer lifespan.


End file.
